pharyngula

"Little girl, would you like some candy?" Somebody didn't think things through when they decided that this was a good strategy for proselytizing. An Edmonton mother is outraged after members of a local church approached her daughter on a playground - offering a Bible verse, candy and a promise that…

Go give them something to talk about. Do you believe in God? Hell yeah! 73.65 % No! What a farce. 18.00 % Just cuz I'm afraid not to. 8.35 %

This video may not be to everyone's taste — it's pretty awful. This is an octopus dish served in Hakodate, in which the poor raw cephalopod is presumably dead, but when soy sauce is poured over it, it's triggered to writhe its tentacles. I do not approve. Either it's cephalopod torture if it's…

Now that the Cloyne report is available, the perfidy of the Catholic church is directly measurable. Michael Nugent has tallied up a list of all the documented, unambiguous cases of Irish Catholic officials lying — just blatant, undeniable, flat out lying to investigators. I'm pretty sure that's…

Atheists are planning to run bus ads in Spokane that say, "Are you good without God? Millions are." I know, about as mild and inoffensive as they come…but still, local media are running polls to find out if people will be offended. Would an Atheist Billboard Campaign on the sides of STA Buses…

We could be gamers. Oh, wait … some of us are! If you want to see the very worst of raging, testosterone-poisoned sexism, look to nerd-dominated gaming culture; I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a significant part of the current conflict in the skeptical movement comes from our large overlap…

We could be Christians. Answers in Genesis distributes a little quiz about modesty: I took it and failed. Most of the questions assume clothing is defined by God, that the purpose of clothing is to hide sexuality, and the focus is almost entirely on women — look at questions #9 and #10, for…

I had to include the video from this post. (Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,765 entries with 1,441,820 comments.)

We're on the Ardent Atheist show this evening sometime. Tune in!

Now I'm sad. Robin Marie asked people at #TAM9 what the best argument for god was, and she didn't get around to me. My answer would be the argument from ignorance, because they all boil down to that, anyway, and because the only way I could ever be persuaded to believe in gods is if my brain gets…

You heard me. Now. She summarizes the state of sexism in the skeptical movement, with suggestions for change. It's freakin' excellent. And she uses this comic: Read her four-point manifesto for change. If you can't see the value of it, you are the problem.

I've taken a few pokes at the bad science of Rhawn Joseph and the Journal of Cosmology over the years — for instance, in this post summarizing an article that was little more than a thinly threaded excuse to show off pictures of women in bikinis, or this post about their claim to have found…

If only I could say the same for other members of the Democratic party.

Last week, the Cloyne report was released. This document describes patterns of child abuse and in particular the willful intransigence of the Catholic church in correcting the problems in Ireland, and it's pretty damned damning. One significant detail: the Church's defense in recent months consists…

How do people stomach this stuff? Bill Dembski was on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, so I tried to listen — the host goes on and on about his dogma, and it makes no sense. "Here's what the Bible says, it's true, therefore you have to believe." And then he introduces Dembski as someone who uses…

It's really a shame he didn't live to be even 78 or so, so Gregor Mendel could have lived to see his work recognized. I also wonder what he would have thought to know that even godless atheists centuries after his life would know his name and his scientific work so well… Also, via Google today:…

Somehow, I get the impression I wouldn't get a fair shake. "Hey! You there! Hands up! I see you walking while wearing socks with sandals on a Sunday! We're takin' you in to the Ecclesiastical Court!"

Is anyone surprised that Bill O'Reilly slavishly defends Rupert Murdoch? Of course not — I'm pretty sure his employers have tattooed the word "tool" somewhere on his anatomy. You might be surprised at the stupidity of his rationale…wait, no, you won't be. Nothing the "tide goes in, tide goes out"…

As you may recall, I maneuvered a gang of atheists into offering forfeits if they could beat me in fundraising…and Matt Dillahunty agreed to appear in drag on his show. And he has come through! Watch the latest Atheist Experience TV Show — he's looking good. Watch the show, though. He didn't just…

The UK has been having a debate about Sharia law in the House of Commons. Why, I don't know; it's so regressive and oppressive, such a step backward, that it ought to be simply dismissed out of hand. Maryam Namazie gave a speech opposing Sharia law, and here's a small piece of it. After all, Sharia…

The embryologists' way. (Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,751 entries with 1,439,596 comments.)

I think the loony Christian apologist has got something right. He has identified the greatest threat to Christianity: The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and…

The Canadian Centre for Inquiry has an ambitious goal of establishing a physical center in every major Canadian city, and they've got substantial matching funds to help them do just that. This is the time to donate, if you've got the inclination. I'm sure they'd also accept donations from…

Perhaps you've wondered about the true and factual foundations of fairy tales other than the biblical ones. It turns out that the reasoning of theologians is universally applicable! It is time to set the record straight, and affirm the historical Truth of the Goldilocks narrative. I intend to show…

There's a Sarah Palin "documentary" out, called The Undefeated, and it's a weird example of conservatives trying to create a new alternative reality again. First, she was defeated: notice that it isn't Vice President Palin. Second, the professional reviewers are all panning the movie — it's a…

The Atheists, Skeptics, & Humanists Team on Folding@Home, the distributed computing effort to calculate protein folding properties, is looking for your spare CPU cycles. Join them! It's a much more productive use of your computer than that silly SETI@Home project.

I have a daughter. She's all smart and growed up, and she has moved away to the distant land of Wisconsin, where she has a real, full-time job and a car and an apartment and a cat and ferrets and a boyfriend, and she thinks for herself (like I told her to!) and she has opinions I mostly agree with…

This cartoon would be funnier if it were a little less true.